PODCAST - Djokovic, Alcaraz, Fognini, Sinner, Musetti, Nardi, Edberg & More

NICOLA PIETRANGELI ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIS PLAYING DAYS AND TODAY - ‘It’s a different game. Before you had to know how to play tennis, this is a physical game. Before you had talent and then you became an athlete, today you’re an athlete and if you have talent it’s better’.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC ON HIS BIGGEST RIVAL - ‘I can’t take anybody else but Nadal as my biggest rival, as long as Nadal is playing, as long as I’m playing, Nadal is always my biggest rival regardless of the ranking or what’s going on on tour. I have tons of respect for Alcaraz and there’s some other players, but Nadal and myself go back a long time, so definitely he comes in front’.

CARLOS ALCARAZ ON WINNING THE LAUREUS WORLD BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR AWARD - ‘It was amazing but it was crazy for me to receive that big award and being surrounded by great athletes, great people, it was unbelievable for me. As Federer, Rafa, Djokovic did, they won multiple Laureus Awards, but the big ones, but starting from the bottom, it’s great to represent tennis’.

FABIO FOGNINI ON RETAINING THE FIGHTING SPIRIT - ‘The last few years after my injury and after the pandemic of course, I didn’t win so many matches, but I want to make a present to myself and I don’t want to close my career with injuries. I have something special here in my head, so I would like to fight until I reach this goal’.

JANNIK SINNER ON HIS SELF-BELIEF - ‘I have a different mindset and I’m not scared to say that I can win big, big matches. I’m here, I can do it, but you have to have the right respect for every single player and emotional-wise it’s not easy, but I want to push myself to the limits and I know I can show some very good tennis’.

LORENZO MUSETTI ON HIS MEMORIES OF WATCHING FEDERER IN ROME - ‘I have one picture in my head that reminds me of me watching Federer playing doubles on the courts that are now practice courts and I was looking at him like my inspiration and now when I play on that court, I always remember him playing there and moving and having the steps on court where I’m going now’.

LUCA NARDI ON LEARNING TO ADAPT HIS GAME AT THE START OF HIS CARRER - ‘For sure my gaming is changing a little bit. I learned to be more of a defender sometimes because I work a lot physically and I won a lot of matches when I didn’t play that well but I had the physical power’.

ITALIAN TENNIS FEDERATION’S LUCA SBRASCINI ON GETTING KIDS INVOLVED IN TENNIS - ‘We’ve had 60,000 kids during these two weeks and for us that’s a big success. The secret is to create an event, within the big event and our main objective is to involve a lot of kids, we reach out to clubs and schools and we have a lot of projects that we involve within these events’.

STEFAN EDBERG ON ROME - ‘It’s a good place to place to play, you know you feel like tennis belongs here, it’s like playing at Wimbledon, that’s where tennis belongs as well and there are certain places in the world where you feel that this is special and this is one of the places’.

STEFAN EDBERG’S RECIPE FOR SUCCESS - ‘Well first of all you need to have good people around you and you need to have a vision and you need to have a team that looks after you on and off the court and you need to keep your passion going, but you also need a little bit of luck’.

- Podcast presented by Seb Lauzier - Interviews by Ursin Caderas, Richard Connelly and Jill Craybas